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(CNN Spanish) -
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, downplayed the credibility of a list declassified by the United States Department of State that mentions five Salvadorans in a list of Central American politicians allegedly linked to corruption cases, including his chief of cabinet, Carolina Recinos.
The list was declassified at the request of California Democratic Representative Norma Torres, who is a native of Guatemala and has a political controversy with Bukele.
The president considers that she meddles in the internal affairs of El Salvador and called on Latin Americans living in California not to vote for her.
"In the report I requested, which is now public, the US government recognizes the corruption that Central American authoritarians and their allies deny and try to hide," Torres wrote in a tweet attaching the reports.
"The Northern Triangle cannot prosper as long as its officials are more focused on enrichment than on serving the public," he added.
"This is not fighting corruption, this is geopolitics," Bukele wrote in a reply tweet to Torres.
In another message, the president assured that his government "will truly fight corruption."
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The list, declassified by the State Department on May 4 and sent to Congress that day, was published this Monday by various Salvadoran media and confirmed this Tuesday by Torres with a tweet and a press release that she published on her official page as a legislator. .
There Torres also includes links to two separate documents.
The documents also name politicians from Honduras and Guatemala, as well as officials and former officials belonging to both Bukele's party, GANA, and the former ruling Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), who allegedly have committed or facilitated “significant acts of corruption. ”.
Recinos has not spoken out and has not responded to CNN requests made through the Presidency's Communications Secretariat.
When asked by CNN about the report, a spokesman for the US State Department said he could not "comment on the content of a private report to Congress", but that he "takes seriously each and every one of the accusations of corruption".
The latter, according to the spokesperson, is "at the center of the government's approach to improving conditions in the Northern Triangle countries."
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In one of his tweets, Bukele highlighted that El Salvador's list does not include politicians connected to the right-wing Arena party.
“The 'friends' say that they have already checked well all the files and information they have and that in the Arena [party] there are not corrupted, not a single one.
That maybe they will check back in the future, but that they believe they are all saints.
That is why they insist that we return them to power, by saints. "
Salvadorans included in the State Department list
In addition to Recinos, the Salvadoran list includes Rogelio Rivas, dismissed as Minister of Justice and Security at the end of March;
José Luis Merino, Vice Minister of Foreign Investment and Financing for Development during the administration of former President Salvador Sánchez Cerén (2014-2019);
Guillermo Gallegos, current deputy of the Legislative Assembly and member of the board of directors;
as well as Othón Sigfrido Reyes Morales, former president of the Legislative Assembly.
CNN called Rivas' company and people close to him, but could not be reached for his reaction.
Rivas is pointed out in the document "for rewarding his own private construction company with several contracts, not subject to competition, for the construction of police stations and other buildings that fell under his official powers, and inflating the costs of materials" .
Consulted by telephone, Congressman Gallegos told CNN that he had no comment at the moment.
The State Department document says that Gallegos is allegedly related "to significant acts of corruption."
Gallegos is a senior leader of the Great Alliance for National Unity (GANA), a party that Bukele used to participate in the elections and win the presidency of El Salvador in 2019.
The report on Merino, a senior FMLN leader, points out the same.
Although he is not his spokesman, a person close to him explained to CNN that he is out of the country and that there will be no comment for now.
For his part, Reyes criticized the State Department in a tweet for, according to him, echoing “ridiculous accusations mounted by former prosecutor Raúl Melara.
"The lie will continue to be a lie," he added in his publication.
Reyes has an arrest warrant in force in El Salvador since January 2020 for alleged crimes of money laundering, embezzlement and fraud.
During Raúl Melara's administration, the Prosecutor's Office accused him of appropriating public funds while he was in charge of the Legislative Assembly and of allegedly taking advantage of the position to illicitly enrich himself.
Reyes, who is asylum in Mexico, has denied the allegations.
A history of allegations
The accusations and responses between Torres and Bukele are not new.
In April, the president asked Salvadorans in California's 35th district "not to vote" for Torres.
"It does not work for you, but to keep our countries underdeveloped," Bukele wrote at the time, after an exchange of messages with Torres on the same social network.
They ask Biden not to give money to corrupt governments 1:12
It all started when the congresswoman blamed the governments of the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador) for the migration drama.
Torres used as an example the video of the US Border Patrol that captured the moment in which human smugglers throw two young girls over the metal wall that separates the US from Mexico.
"This is a great shame for the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, their compatriots deserve governments that are truly committed to fighting corruption and drug trafficking," Torres wrote.
President Bukele then criticized Torres for the imprecision in the information, since the two minors were from Ecuador.
The link between El Salvador and the US is not going through its best moment
Relations between El Salvador and the United States are not going through their best moment.
The administration of President Joe Biden has expressed its "deep concern" after the Legislative Assembly, with a pro-government majority, removed the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber and the Attorney General on May 1, sparking an international uproar.
Kamala Harris announces trip to Mexico and Guatemala on June 7 and 8 1:06
Ricardo Zúñiga, special envoy for the Northern Triangle of Central America, met with President Bukele on May 11 in San Salvador.
A day later, Zúñiga said at a press conference that "the best thing" was to restore Constitutional order.
However, Bukele responded to that statement on Twitter and assured that the changes were "irreversible."
After his visit, Zúñiga told a press conference that he would deliver a report to evaluate the next steps.
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